Servant of All
“Whoever would be great among you must be your servant”
“And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We are able.”
Matthew 20:21-22
Doesn’t it feel good to get recognition for good work? To get that promotion, especially when you feel like you’ve earned it. That’s why the answer that James and John get from Jesus in this passage from Matthew may have been so confusing.
Matthew’s Gospel tells us that Jesus and His disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. And on the way, Salome, the mother of James and John, asks Jesus that He gives her sons seats of honor in the kingdom. Hearing the answer that Jesus gives and the reaction of the other apostles — who were not impressed — could lead us to imagine that Salome and her boys were being sly and power hungry.
Yet, we see elsewhere in the Gospels that Salome was a woman of profound faith and devotion to Jesus. Both she and her two sons left their successful family seafood business to follow Jesus. Mark’s Gospel records that Salome was one of the few who attended the crucifixion and that she was one of the women that discovered the empty tomb.
Furthermore, James and John were two of the three apostles in what is often referred as Jesus’ “inner circle.” James and John, along with Peter, were the only apostles who witnessed some of Jesus’ miracles, like raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead and the Transfiguration of Christ.
So, it is not hard to imagine James and John hoping to continue in that same privilege when Jesus would come into power as they imagined it. Yet, when they request to be at Jesus’ right and left hand, he explains that greatness is defined by servanthood.
I don't know about you, but I don’t naturally think about greatness in terms of being a servant to all. When I think about greatness, I often think about the recognition, admiration and influence of greatness. I don’t think of it as thankless slaving away. I suppose that I am still waiting for God to transform this in me! Thankfully, I am not alone because so were James and John.
Yet, Jesus really did not love them any less because of their mistake. James and John, along with Peter, were the only apostles Jesus brought to comfort Him in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his Passion. And they did drink the cup that Jesus drank: James was the first apostle to be martyred and John was the last.
May God transform our hearts and minds so that through the work of the Holy Spirit, our appetites are turned away from the greatness that the world offers and turned towards that servant-greatness that Christ embodies and that our Heavenly Father treasures. Amen.
